The communications industry is rapidly changing to adjust to emerging technologies and ever increasing customer demand. This customer demand for new applications and increased performance of existing applications is driving communications network and system providers to employ networks and systems having greater speed and capacity (e.g., greater bandwidth). In trying to achieve these goals, a common approach taken by many communications providers is to use packet switching technology.
Routers are communications devices used in a network to “route” packets through the network. Typically, routers exchange information, using routing protocols, to discover the topology of the network and to determine best paths for routing packets through the network. The exchanged information is typically stored in a Routing Information Base (RIB). A router then processes information in the RIB to determine how to forward packets from the router. Some routers, especially in a core network, may use label switching technology to simplify the forwarding decision of a packet. In such a scenario, a first router typically will provide to a second router: a different label to use for each different route, a different label to use for each customer edge router, and a different label to use for each virtual routing and forwarding domain (VRF). In processing a received packet that has such a label, the first router can readily identify the forwarding information for the packet, and forward it accordingly.